This invention relates to article dispensing apparatus and, more particularly, to a lid dispenser for dispensing a lid from a stack of plastic cup lids.
In restaurants or other food or beverage venues, lids are made available for the covering of items generally served or supplied in cups or similar containers. A major goal of a retail operation is to encourage and enable the customers to frequently patronize the establishment. Customer satisfaction is paramount to repeat business. A key source of customer dissatisfaction is related the lack of cleanliness and/or perceived lack of cleanliness. The cleanliness cannot be guaranteed for lids that are provided atop a stack of lids, made available in a conventional way (e.g., in an open bin-type dispenser), and presented for use. In attempting to locate a suitably clean lid, the user will often separate multiple lids from the stack of lids until a suitably clean lid is found. The removed lids are then placed away from the dispenser (allowing them to become even more unsanitary), replaced within the stack (introducing further contamination), or discarded (resulting in higher refill expense).
Article dispensing apparatus are known in the art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,471,092 discloses a dispenser for dispensing an endmost lid from a stack of vertically orientated nestable lids. The dispenser may include a dispensing mechanism, which in turn further includes a track member, a tube, three supports, three arms, and three pins. The track member can have a ringed configuration and form a groove on a face. Desirably, the tube is inserted in and coupled to the track member wherein the tube forms a cylindrical chamber for receiving a stack of nestable lids and forms three triangular holes and three slots. Each support may include a body formed integrally with a post for being received within the groove and a ledge and each arm may include a body formed integrally with a post for being received within the groove and further may form a slot. Each pin can have an end received within the slot of a respective arm, whereby rotating the track member may extend and retract the ledges of supports and the pins through respective slots and triangular holes in the tube. The isolating members are rather complex. The apparatus has many parts, and is operated by a motor. The size variation range of the articles being dispensed is small.